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November 22, 2024
 

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David Howell
COMMENTARY
Aug 28, 2008
How to handle an angry bear
Experts and commentators have been pouring out books, pamphlets and articles in recent times telling us that conventional wars between states are a thing of the past and that all nations now instead face a kind of globalized, nihilistic terrorism requiring entirely new responses. Unfortunately the Russians...
COMMENTARY
Aug 14, 2008
Growing energy disarray
The energy policies of European nations, and of Britain in particular, are in disarray. Admittedly the ferocious rise in crude oil prices has eased, but how long the present dip will last, with the Russians bombing one of the main oil transit pipelines from the Caspian region through Georgia and the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2008
An outbreak of nationalism
The issue of Scottish nationalism has again come to a head, and is raising serious political issues for all of Britain. The situation has been sparked by the outcome of a recent parliamentary by-election which, to general surprise, the Scottish Nationalist candidate won.
COMMENTARY
Jul 17, 2008
Let's hope it's over soon
The world is now in the grip of a first-class financial crisis. Some will be hit harder than others, but no one is going to escape. Final confirmation of this has arrived with the news that the two giant mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pillars of American life that underwrite, or insure,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2008
Still 'efficient' G8 faces new realities
The 19th-century historian and political analyst Walter Bagehot divided affairs of state between what he called the dignified and the efficient. In the dignified category were great formal meetings of state, the pomp and ceremony surrounding heads of state and monarchs, and all the symbolic parades and...
COMMENTARY
Jul 3, 2008
Iraq's petroleum dilemmas
An intense debate is going on inside Iraq about the future of its oil industry. That such a debate should be going on at all is encouraging and a sign that at last the security situation may be getting better and the government more established.
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2008
What's Europe's next move?
The Irish have spoiled the party. By decisively voting down in a referendum the proposed Lisbon Treaty on the future organization and governance of the European Union, the Irish have brought the whole process of EU reform to a dead halt.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2008
Energy-cost issue boils over
Is the green party over? Is the ferocious rise in energy costs worldwide, driven by the soaring price of oil, undermining all the enthusiasm for saving the planet in the longer term via cutting carbon emissions and penalizing all forms of fossil-fuel consumption?
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2008
Remember the black swans
The great global economic establishment is once again divided as to what is going to happen next. Half say we are lurching toward a new bout of world inflation. Half say the danger is deflation and world recession, even depression.
COMMENTARY
May 10, 2008
Britain's next government must beat mood of retreat
LONDON — Has the political tide in Britain now turned? And is the Labour Party under Prime Minister Gordon Brown now heading for defeat?
COMMENTARY
Apr 24, 2008
Now it's food versus fuel
What is the next great global problem we have to fear? The answer is not climate change and global warming, but food shortage and starvation. Suddenly, and in ways largely unforeseen by experts, a serious shortage of food supplies, especially corn and rice, has crept up on the world. The result has been...
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2008
U.K.'s ongoing EU headache
LONDON — What is a constitution? The question may seem to be a rarefied and abstruse one for lawyers and academics, but just at the moment it lies at the very heart of British politics and strategy.
COMMENTARY
Mar 20, 2008
Brace for the Arctic oil rush
LONDON — For decades the world's major oil companies and their engineering experts have been eyeing the Arctic region and wondering how to get at the oil and gas deposits that are said to lie, in almost legendary quantities, beneath the vast expanses of ice. With the price of crude oil now well above...
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2008
Sovereign funds rescue West
LONDON — Ten years ago some commentators, including myself, were forecasting that the age of Westernization was over and that the age of Easternization was about to begin. Capital and technology that had flowed from the West to the East for several centuries past was now about to start flowing the...
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2008
Chasing out rich foreigners
LONDON — Of all the unwise policies of recent years that have steadily undermined the Thatcher legacy of British economic dynamism and enterprise, perhaps the worst and most ill-judged is the current attempt to drive out the super-rich foreigners who have hitherto found Britain such an attractive place...
COMMENTARY
Feb 7, 2008
Russia disappoints the world
LONDON — What are we to do about Russia?
COMMENTARY
Jan 22, 2008
An idea whose time has gone
LONDON — Back in the 1970s a political idea became very fashionable in Western Europe, and especially in Britain. This was the concept of multiculturalism — the belief that different immigrant and ethnic groupings, who were then pouring into the region, should be left to their own devices and allowed,...
COMMENTARY
Jan 4, 2008
Global 'war' waged in vain
LONDON — The tragic killing of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan has sent a raft of shock-wave messages round the world. Most of these have been carefully and lengthily noted and analyzed — such as the concern that Pakistan, labeled a frontline state in the fight against terrorism, could now collapse into...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2007
Wrong approach to Africa
LONDON — An acrimonious summit meeting between EU leaders and the leaders of African countries ended last week in Lisbon. The EU was trying to offer the Africans a new trade deal, but many of the African representatives argued that the deal would make them worse off, not better off. They denounced...
COMMENTARY
Dec 3, 2007
When we let machines down
LONDON — Dinosaurs, so we are told, died out because they were too big. Or some say they were wiped out by an asteroid. No matter — all agree that their basic problem was size. They were just too large, their brains were too remote from their bodies, and their control systems could not cope.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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